Interestingly, people don't train for marathons by running marathon distances either. But if you are going to run them regularly, or pitch an entire baseball season regularly, you probably do need to consistently train to an appropriate distance. Is that 200 IP, 230 IP? It seems any starter should be expected to reach the low-200s in IP. Only if a starter is pitching in the post season will the IP increase significantly. You know exactly how long a marathon is. You don't have that luxury during a baseball season.

Most marathon training regimes typically max out at about 20 miles. I've never understood that; I once road a bicycle from Minneapolis to Chicago over the course of 6 days. We knew we would have to ride about 100 miles one of the days so we trained to and did at least one 100 mile training ride. I guess the thought behind not training to the required distance is that the adrenaline of the marathon itself will carry you those last 6.2 miles. It's probably the same with baseball playoffs.